


Cyborgs Are Always Fine

by GalaxyOwl



Category: The Thrilling Adventure Hour
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Canon Crossover, Cyborgs, F/F, Flashbacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-08
Updated: 2015-04-08
Packaged: 2018-03-21 20:01:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3703639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GalaxyOwl/pseuds/GalaxyOwl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mostly, trying to build a life from scratch is difficult; she knows that much from experience. Somehow she never realized how accustomed she got to seeing the same people day after to day, to being greeted as <em>Deputy</em>. New friendships take time to be built, and it isn't easy waiting.</p><p>(Saving the universe from destruction via paradox isn't all it's cracked up to be. Especially once you realize you can never go home, or see your totally-platonic best friend again.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cyborgs Are Always Fine

_Good luck, Dolores. I'm sure you'll be fine. Cyborgs are always fine._

\---

The hardest thing to get used to, Dolores thinks, is the sky. She misses seeing the Earth above the horizon, its bright blues and greens against the distant black of space, so large and looming above them. On Mars—on any planet, she supposes—there isn't that presence, that figure watching over them, as if to say, _This is where you came from._

Mars' moons hanging in the sky seem so small, so cold and lifeless in contrast. She visited them, a couple times, and while the solitude was nice, it only made her yearn all the harder for her home. The sky is so empty here, so unending. How could she ever get used to this?

And it isn't that she's completely alone, though she feels that way sometimes. She isn't ungrateful for the others' company. Sparks or Croach or Red stop by on occasion, or sometimes even the ex-Moon clone kids.

Then, of course, there's Nice Man Dan. He's nice, and all the more nice for letting Dolores stay with him and help out with the shoe business. But it's _exhausting_ being near someone who's so perpetually nice and reasonable, especially when Dolores is so on-edge, on this lifeless rock of a planet. It's towards the beginning of her third week on Mars that someone approached her and asked if there was _something going on_ between her and Dan. She feels like laughing, but instead just gives a firm "No."

Mostly, trying to build a life from scratch is difficult; she knows that much from experience. Somehow she never realized how accustomed she got to seeing the same people day after to day, to being greeted as _Deputy_. New friendships take time to be built, and it isn't easy waiting.

\---

The hardest thing was trying not sound _over_ -confidant, Dolores thought, reading over the application one last time. She didn't want to seem arrogant, but she needed to convey that she was capable, because she was.

She sat back in her chair. She should just call it finished, or she might ruin it. Dolores pushed the packet of papers to the other side of the table, and forced herself to put it out of her mind. Or tried to.

Maybe she would get the marshal position; maybe she wouldn't. Logic said she had a good chance, but she couldn't be sure either way.

She let out a deep breath, then frowned to herself at the habit. Her breathing was mechanically regulated now, but it was discomforting to think of that.

She stared up towards the ceiling of her small apartment. _Marshal County_ ; it sounded nice. But it was more than that, she thought. She wanted to help people. The Moon needed her, needed someone who could get things done, could put this satellite back together.

She wanted to believe that could be her, anyway.

Dolores stood, walked to the window, and pressed the button to slide it open. The three-quarters Earth hung bright in the sky.

She could do this.

\---

Dolores is working in the shop, or at least she's supposed to be. Her mind keeps wandering—to things going on on Mars, to things she left behind on the Moon. She's jolted from her thoughts by the clamoring wind-chimes that mean the door has been opened, and looks up in time to see a man enter. She forces herself to put on a bright smile age approaches.

"Can I help you with something?" she asks.

He blinks, and Dolores tries not to let her surprise show: his left iris is a metallic silver-white, and she realizes with a start he's a cyborg. Her eyes dart to his hand, made in the same color and crafted with intricacy.

Momentarily self-conscious, she rubs her own metalline fingers, and takes a deep breath. She never did manage to break that habit. Some things just stick.

"Don't you recognize me?" the man says.

"No," she responds in surprise before she can think about it. Her words are quickly followed by a moment of panic, trying to see if she can place his face. Did she know him pre-takeover? Pre-Mars? How long? "Sorry."

They're just standing there, the two of them, staring at each other. Dolores is the first to break eye contact, lowering her gaze to the floor, discomforted.

"We met—" he says. "Well, I'd thought—" Then he shakes his head. "Not important. I heard rumors you were here, thought if they were true, maybe you could help my cause, but I suppose it was just..."

"Real sorry," she repeats. She feels terrible. She's starting to think of what else to say, when the door chimes again. To her surprise, the one entering is Sparks.

"Marshal Nevada?" she calls.

He looks over. "Dolores—are you okay? Felton said he saw—" He breaks off mid-phrase and stares at the man standing next-to her.

Suddenly, his guns are out. For a split-second Dolores thinks he's aiming them at _her_ , and she misses his next sentence. But, no: they're pointed towards the other cyborg.

She takes an instinctive step away from the stranger, but her eyes are on the marshal. "What exactly is going on?"

"You don't know? This guy's wanted for like six accounts of first-degree murder. Got word earlier from your friend Marshal Stallwark that he was headed our way, and then, y'know, _this_ happened." He gestures with the laser pistols as he finishes speaking, which can't be particularly safe.

She meets eyes briefly with the bionic man standing across from her. "I didn't want you to find out like this," he says gravely, and then in a flash, pulls out a laser pistol of his own. Now Dolores is the only one without weapons out. She has weapons systems built-in, but she doesn't know that she could access them quickly enough to do much good.

"Come _on_ ," Sparks says.

The cyborg man takes a shot at a stack of boxes between them and the marshal, and afterwards there's no clear space between. Dolores moves to apprehend the outlaw—somehow—but before she can do anything, he's halfway across the room.

And then he's gone, and Dolores is left with nothing but a pulse racing from the kind of exhilaration she'd thought she would never know again.

"Dammit," Nevada mutters.

Dolores doesn't say anything. Her mind is preoccupied with trying to place where she knew the man. He'd been seeming more and more familiar the whole time. Nothing comes to her. How did he know where she was? If there were rumors—should she be worried about someone she knew find her? But more importantly, why exactly did this person seek her out?

\---

There was a letter waiting for Dolores on her computer when she got home, and at first all she could think of was the quaintness of using a physical computer rather than sending the message to a more mobile device.

She opened the letter onto the screen before she could let herself change her mind. She had an idea what this might be, and stopped short at the first line. _We're glad to accept your application..._

She got the position!

At first, that was all she could think of, but as she read on, she realized with a start that the letter was hours old. She was supposed to be there _now_.

Without thinking, she uploaded the letter to her personal system and, with a glance around the room, dashed out. She was racing down the street, running on adrenaline and electricity and pure, unbridled excitement. The marshal's station was just down the street; there was no reason she couldn't make it in time.

It wasn't long until she arrived at her destination. The door opened of its own accord, before she could even mentally prepare herself for its doing so. Standing in the doorway, grinning brightly, was the girl who'd been the face of Dolores' city for more years than she could count.

Pemily Stallwark.

What was she doing here?

Dolores stepped inside, eying the sports champion uncertainly. "What ... ?" was all she could get out.

"I'm Pemily Stallwark," the girl introduced herself with smile. "Marshal on the Moon."

She started to say "I know," but was thrown off by the end of the statement. "Something ain't right here."

Stallwark's eyes lit up. "Oh! You must be Dolores County. Yes, 'bout... that. Ah, see, I was made marshal, but that didn't happen until after they'd chosen you, and it took _forever_ to figure out the logistics and get here, and so... this happened. When you didn't show earlier, I assumed you'd been contacted?"

"I was not," Dolores said simply. She tried to focus on her surroundings: the mostly-empty marshal station, the chair pulled hastily away from the desk. Tried to stay calm.

Pemily kept talking. "So, anyways, if all's well, you'll be my deputy. Ain't it great?"

 _Deputy_. Okay. That was fine; she'd be fine. After all, she was deputy! She could still help her moon. There was no reason to be annoyed.

But she was dubious of Pemily, to say the least. That this cute twig of a girl—blood sports champion or _not_ —could pull the Moon back together was hard to believe. Dolores found herself watching the newly-appointed marshal with veiled contempt.

"Listen," she said. "I don't know who's authority named you marshal—"

Pemily interrupted her. "Who's—no, please, you listen to _me_. I won this job, fair and square. I can do it, but I didn't ask for this to happen, and I certainly don't intend to be bossed around by someone who's supposed to be below me. So, I think, of you just give me a bit of respect... we can get along fine."

Dolores side-eyed her; Stallwark was still all bravado as far as she was concerned, brash words with nothing to back them up.

A moment passed in silence, just staring at one another. Pemily seemed to be watching her, now, a little bit nervous.

"So, uh," she said, "do you think you could show me around the town? It's just, it's been a while, and I _really_ wanna make a good impression on folk."

Dolores muffled a laugh. Maybe bravado hadn't been the right word. Maybe this girl had something going for her after all.

"Alright, _boss_ ," she said with a smile. There was work to do.

\---

"I'm gonna head down to the station, see what I can't find on this guy," Nevada says from beside her.

"I'll come with you," Dolores says, distracted; the marshal mutters something that might be a response. Thinking quickly then, she grabs a pad of fresh white paper and leaves a note for Dan explaining where she's headed. This isn't the first time she's done this, although it is admittedly the first time it's happened because of a near-shootout in the middle of the store.

As she and Sparks make their way through town, he explains what's going on. The cyborg was an outlaw, a cyborg extremist by the name of Clyde Voltaic. In return Dolores explains, reluctantly, what he had said. She feels somehow that she should have the answers, but she doesn't. She's as confused as anyone, and she hates it.

When they arrive at the station, the AI declares their entrance to an empty room.

Nevada sits down in his chair as Dolores leans uncertainly against a wall. He glances towards the screen towards the other side of the room, and she follows his gaze to see the blinking icon labeled _Incoming Message_. Onto the screen jumps the illustrious Pemily Stallwark.

It takes Dolores a full minute to process that she's already out of frame of the video; Pemily can't see her. Paradox averted. She doesn't know whether to be glad or not.

"Yeah, he's already here," Sparks is saying. "Caught him talking to—a local. Yeah. But he got away. Reckon he's still 'round here somewhere."

On-screen, Pemily frowns. "I should come down, help you out, yeah? I mean, technically, since he's a Moon criminal, it's my jurisdiction."

Sparks glanced towards Dolores, who shakes her head. Pemily can't come down here. She _can't_. Can't be allowed to realize there's two Dolores'.

"Yeah, no, think I've got it sorted, Pemily. Thanks for the offer."

"Are you sure?"

Dolores squeezes her eyes shut, leaning against the wall. Just looking at the screen feels like being plunged into space. She was doing her best to keep her old life out of her mind, and now here it is springing towards her. Just hearing Pemily's voice as she talks with Sparks, as she refuses to back down, is enough to make Dolores' heart pound.

How long has it been now? Two weeks? A month? How long since she saw Pemily? Since she last was home?

"Dolores." She snaps her eyes open as she realizes Nevada is talking to her now. "Pemily's comin' down here, I dunno about your weird time stuff, not really my issue, but—"

Dolores nods. "I need to get out of here."

She turns towards the door.

"The marshal station doors are open," says an automated voice, and Dolores freezes on the spot. Sparks starts talking to the doors, telling them _not_ to open, but Dolores just knows she needs to hide, because it's probably Pemily outside. She makes a move towards the closest hiding place she can see, some closet, and slips herself inside. It's dark, and cramped, and it smells like dead animals or something.

It was Pemily outside. She can hear her talking. She's _right there_. Pemily Stallwark is mere feet away from her, and she can't even say hello. Can't even say _goodbye_ to anyone who'll remember it. All she can do is listen, and try to evaluate the situation without bias.

"...where he is?"

"I sent Croach out to do his tracking thing, so we should be hearin' from him soon."

There's something uncomfortably pressed against Dolores' back, but she can't move to see for fear she'll make noise.

"Alright," Pemily says. "So all we need do is... wait?"

"Guess so—not really... Huh."

"'Huh', what?"

"There's a... a message. From... no one. Anonymous tip. 'Cause that's just what this day needed."

"Should we be suspicious?" Pemily asks.

Dolores wonders how they can't hear her breathing, her heartbeat, her every twitch. In the confined space, it all sounds so loud, drowning out all other sounds.

The next thing she can make out is Pemily's "Let's go, then."

"Right. Go to _Dusty Canyon_." Sparks heaps emphasis onto the last phrase, presumably for Dolores' benefit. She would laugh if her head weren't still spinning.

The two space marshals leave, their footsteps buried under the AI's speech.

Dolores considers opening the closet door, but instead she waits. One second, two, ten, a minute. All's silent. She steps out into the Marshal Station.

\---

Pemily Stallwark didn't talk much that first day as Dolores helped her relearn her way around her home satellite. The cyborg began to worry the young marshal hadn't quite realized what she'd been taking on, that this was hopeless after all. What would she do then?

As they walked through the town, Dolores tried to fill the silence as best as she could. She talked about the area, the people, anything to distract from the silence and the world with too many of its inhabitants dead.

Every now and then, someone would recognize Stallwark, and the reactions ranged from cheerful waves to pointed glares to angry yelling. The ex-soccer player took all of it in stride, flinching away only momentarily from an old man's yelling about how the reason the moon was in shambles was because they dissolved punishment soccer. As if it was all Pemily's fault.

Finally, they got to the part of the town that Dolores had been dreading to enter, to show to the eager young marshal, where the less-fortunate had already begun to congregate.

The street lighting seemed dimmer here as they approached, though she couldn't have said whether that was true or just her eyes playing tricks. Pemily walked close to her, and she tried to ignore the sound of her own heart pounding in her chest. Not from fear, but from, well...

There was a young man—Dolores assumed it was a man—slumped against one of the brick walls of a nearby building. As the two of them walked by, he started coughing, and Dolores realized that he was coughing up blood, flecked with silver that had to be metal.

She was going to keep moving, let Stallwark take in the sights and worry about helping people later, but the other woman clearly had different thoughts. As she followed Dolores' line of sight to the boy, her eyes widened, and she moved quickly over to him.

"Boss—" Dolores started to protest, but her voice was drowned by another fit of coughs from the injured man. With a sigh, she followed Pemily over.

"I'm going to help you," the marshal was saying. "Do you need a doctor? Water? What can I do?"

"Pemily," Dolores said. "He's..." She met eyes with the man, and found herself unable to finish the sentence. The slang that had arisen for these people—the sorry folks who hadn't taken to the bionic tech— felt crude and unsympathetic in this context. _Machine fodder_ , _dead men walking_ , _half-lives_. She wished she had the right words, wished she hadn't spent the recent days burying herself in apathy.

"He's hurt," she said instead, as if in a dream. "Should get him back to the station. If that's okay with you." She addressed this last comment to the half-life in question.

His gaze had been darting frantically between the two women, but at this he just nodded slowly. Before Dolores could offer to help, Pemily had him leaning against her shoulder, and it was like this that the three of them traversed the distance back to their marshal station.

\---

Dolores starts to panic when she realizes the station isn't empty. It takes a few seconds longer to realize the other occupant isn't even human.

She untenses her muscles, relief flooding through her. "Hey, Croach," she says, an attempt at seeming casual.

"Dolores County," he greets her. She's still standing just outside the closet door, visibly disheveled from her stint pressed into the closet. "I was unaware you were present."

"Yeah, sorry 'bout that," she mutters, running a hand through her mussed hair. She's still trying to get her bearings.

After a moment of quiet, she asks, "What're you doing here?"

"It was my intention to report to Sparks Nevada that I had located the cyborg outlaw Clyde Voltaic."

Dolores frowns. She looks up from her hands to get a better read of Croach's expression, to little use. "He and Marshal Stallwark just headed down to Dusty Canyon to find him."

"Well then," Croach said, antennae twitching, "they will have traveled a long distance for nothing, for he is far closer to the human township than that location."

Dolores' eyes widened. Of course, there were tons of possibilities; it could have just been bad info. But the tip had seemed sketchy to begin with, and now... "A trap," she says.

Martian facial expressions are hard to read, but she would take a guess that Croach looks alarmed. "Should we follow them?"

"Think we have to," Dolores says. She runs her fingers along the metallic lines crisscrossing her other hand, and tries not to let herself worry too much.

\---

When they made it to the Marshal Station, the man immediately collapsed into a chair. Pemily headed upstairs to get a blanket and a cup of water. And Dolores was left alone with the half-life. She found herself watching him with curiosity. She sat down next to him.

"You okay?" she said.

He shrugged, and Dolores didn't push it. After a long moment of silence, he said, "I'm not hurt or anything. No worse than normal." She was a little surprised to hear him talk, when he'd been so silent.

"Hey," she said, quiet. "What's your name?"

"Clyde," he responded. "Clyde Voltaic."

She reached out her hand in what she hoped was a comforting gesture. "We're gonna help you Clyde, You're gonna be fine. Cyborgs are _always_ fine. I should know."

He gave her a weak smile, possibly insincere, but even that was victory enough for now.

Pemily spoke up. "We _will_ help you." Dolores started; she hadn't noticed her come in. "And all the others. Don't care what we have to do. We'll get you safe for. This—this stuff ain't okay. But, I think, we can fix it. Maybe not just you and me, Dolores, but our Moon—our _home_ —together, we can do this."

The cyborg girl found herself rapt, hanging on Pemily's words. The marshal's posture was confidant, her words warm, her eyes searching. Logic told Dolores her speech was probably just groundless optimism, but maybe that was what they needed just now.

And on top of everything that was going on, she just might be developing a crush.

\---

Dolores and Croach try their best to follow the path the others would have. Dolores can only rely on intuition, but Croach has his tracking skills to fall back on, at least. As they leave town and head out into the red Martian desert, she's all the more aware of how out-of-place she as a Moon native is amongst the orange sand and dust. She might be more aware of it if she wasn't so concerned for Pemily.

And Sparks, of course.

It isn't too long before Dolores can see a few figures in the distance, up on a hilltop near a sharp canyon drop-off. She points to them for Croach, and finds herself holding her breath.

"I'll sneak up and see if it's them," she tells him before he can say anything. "If I don't come back: it's them."

"Are you not concerned with the Moon marshal Pemily Stallwark seeing you," Croach asks with what she wonders might be sarcasm, "and thus creating multiple temporal paradoxes?"

Oh. Right.

 _Unless_ —

She has an idea. A brilliantly obvious idea.

"I think," she says aloud as she begins fiddling with the digital settings on her wrist, "that I can..." She pulls up a personal hologram surrounding herself and lets out the breath she was somehow holding. "Can do _this_."

The hologram has, hopefully rendered her as another person entirely; not cyborg, not Dolores, not anyone any of them know. A disguise that'd be easy to spot if you were looking for it, but hopefully, no one is.

Croach's antennae flick in vague acknowledgment. "You are now indistinguishable to at approximately half of my visual senses, which should be enough to fool the human Pemily Stallwark, which I presume is your intention."

Dolores smiles. "It is."

Without wasting any more time, she heads onwards up the hill to where she can make out three figures standing. She approaches, trying to keep low to avoid being seen, while hoping the terrain doesn't somehow interfere with her hologram. It gradually becomes clear that the people ahead of her are indeed Pemily, Nevada, and Voltaic. All three of them have weapons out, and for a moment Dolores wonders if they don't need her; they outnumber the outlaw two to one.

She readies her own weapon as she nears, regardless. But when she arrives at the summit, she's met with only momentary blank stares rom Pemily and Sparks, and the outlaw takes that moment of distraction to make his move.

It hits her, then, where she's seen Clyde's face before. It feels like she's been smashed into a brick wall. Clyde Voltaic—how could she forget?

But before she can say anything, he aims his weapon at Nevada, Pemily shouts "Sparks!" and the Mars marshal dodges just as the cyborg shoots.

No—something's wrong. It must have been a trick, because the laser was shot towards _Pemily_. She's fallen backwards, right on the edge of the cliff. Without thinking, Dolores scrambles towards her, but Pemily's falling, sliding towards edge of the cliff that hadn't seemed all that close 'til now. She's starting to falls off as her ex-Deputy clasps her hand in her own and holds tight.

Their eyes meet, and time almost seems to slow around them. Does she know? Could she possibly?

There's more gunfire, and then Dolores has gotten her back on her feet, and the moment ends.

Sparks has his weapon trained on Voltaic now. Dolores moves to ready hers again, her other hand still entwined in Pemily's. The criminal reaches his own first, and now he has a gun and they're back at a draw.

"Clyde," Dolores finds herself saying. "Look at me."

"Yeah, uh, who are you?" Sparks asks her with an exasperated tone. "'Cause I don't usually take kindly to folk just showing up for this kinda thing, like, I appreciate your help here, but..."

She ignores him as best she can, her eyes focused on the other cyborg. Maybe he can see, can know who she is. There are so many things that could go wrong with this plan, but she just needs to talk him down. Maybe if she can just stall him, everything will work itself out. "Listen," she says, "I know you're angry. But hurting people isn't going to fix this." She searches for the words, and finds herself, once more, lacking.

He watches her, eyes betraying no emotion. And for a moment, she dares to wonder. Perhaps it's not too late to save him.

"Don't move," Pemily says. Her weapon is trained on Voltaic, and her remaining hand has dropped from Dolores' grip. Dolores bought her time, at least.

Sparks takes out handcuffs, and it seems almost instantaneously that the tension is gone.he says something about victory and teamwork as Croach arrives.

Dolores has eyes only for Pemily.

\---

When Dolores looked out the window, she thought she must be imagining things, that her eyes or her brain or her electronics were somehow failing her. "Pem," she said.

Her friend turned around, from where she'd been standing towards the other side of the room. "Yeah, Deputy?"

She pointed out the marshal station windows. "You see that, don't you?"

Pemily blinked, and looked, and then walked over to peer more closely to the pane. "It's gone," she whispered, and Dolores nodded. "Our Moon's just—gone."

All that could be seen through the glass sheets was dark, empty space, and the Earth spinning onward below it. But, no: Dolores blinked, and it was back again. And then it was in pieces, floating asteroids. There were people, buildings, rocks, all moon and no moon and the _wrong_ moon, images overlaying themselves upon one another infinitely.

A moment passed in terrified silence, and then Pemily said shakily, "This needs investigatin'."  
"You sure?" Dolores asked. "What if...?" She didn't know how she'd been planning on ending the sentence.

But the marshal was already to the door, opening it and then stepping out. Dolores followed after her, wary. Pemily held tightly to the door frame, and the cyborg had to to duck under her arm to get out. For a moment, it looked as if the two of them were standing on a semi-transparent dreamscape of a Moon, just outside a lonely marshal station.

Then it fell away completely, and Pemily was standing on a shred of rock and Dolores was standing on _nothing_. Pem shrieked her name, and grasped for her, and their hands met.

And their eyes met, and time seemed to slow around them.

Then Dolores was swinging wildly again, managing to bring up her other hand until Pemily, holding tight, pulled her up.

They stood, just inside the marshal station, still holding tight to one another's hands. Pemily was breathing hard, and Dolores' heart was hammering in her chest. It was a long moment later that Pemily looked at her and said, "You can let go."

"Right," she said, and reluctantly released her grip.

Pemily just shook her head. After another moment of silence, she said, "We should call someone."

\---

As they walk back to the Mars marshal station, they pair off: Sparks and Croach walk in front eying the captured Voltaic, and Pemily and Dolores, one hurt and the other terrified, make up the back.

"So," Pemily says as they walk slowly across the plains, "who are you?"

Dolores wonders what what happen if she told her. Things wouldn't fall apart immediately, would they?

For a moment—a brief, wonderful moment—she allows herself to wonder.To consider it—talking to her again, just once. Is it enough to make it worth it? The words are on the tip of her tongue. It's just a name, just her own name. Just to talk to her again. Would it be worth it?

But she can't. She knows she can't. The universe is more important than her twice-doomed crush.

So instead she just smiles and says, "A friend," as if that could possibly cover it.

\---

"I ... accept your resignation, Deputy," Pemily said.

"Love you, too," Dolores says. It wasn't like she planned it or anything. It was just that with everything that had happened, with time travel and all these strangers and the very woman in question being un-made, she needed to say it.

Nobody else saw the look on Pemily's face. They were all busy with their own emotional baggage. But Dolores saw it, and that was what mattered. It was a look of sudden understanding, and—did she dare to hope?— _joy_.

But there was no time for more talk, for an affirmation that she'd been right in her knowledge of what Pemily was trying to tell her. No; within moments, it was time for Dolores to travel back, and stop all of this from ever happened.

She sighed, and allowed herself to make the time warp. She was doing it to save everyone, after all. Including Pemily.

\---

It isn't as if Dolores doesn't miss her anymore. But while she'd be the last person to admit it, somehow seeing her again, painful as it was, lent things a bit of closure.

The space saloon's A.I. is saying something in the background, and the barkeep responds, but Dolores isn't paying much attention to the conversation. She's content just to be here, among friends. Or not friends, almost-friends, maybe. And maybe that's enough for now.

Through the window, she can see the empty Martian sky, and she smiles to herself at the sight of it: clear and dark, with its twin moons hanging above the horizon. All she can think is that it looks like home.

\---

Half a solar system away, another Dolores County kisses her girlfriend, and thinks that maybe she's finally found a place for herself.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know how to write action scenes. I do know I really love this ship. I also have a lot of feelings about crossover!Dolores.


End file.
